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Author Topic:   Help!

CrankyHotDog posted 08-29-99 02:44 PM ET
When I play my bases don't expand well enough. I build so many farms but they get stuck at size 3. HELP!
Natguy posted 08-29-99 03:55 PM ET
Supply Crawlers, my friend. Supply Crawlers. You can build a huge number of them without support costs, and they don't cause frone problems when out of the city. You can build farms in open corners of your empire (or set aside a part for a huge, crawler-worked plantation) and send your crawlers there to gather nutrients. I have used this and got a size two city up to a size nine in not too many turns. I then used crawlers to grow to, I believe it was 35 or so. I have not seen too many people use this strategy, but it sure works for me. That allows you to free workers to bring on Golden Ages, or built mineral and energy terraforming around the city while the crawlers take care of nutrients.
Hope this helps. Good luck!
Krushala posted 08-29-99 06:25 PM ET
Make sure you have children's creches in every base. If you have plenty of farms go democratic and planned. With the creches you have +6 growth (same as cloning vats). Make sure you have rec commons in every base too. You may have to boost psych to max out you population to 7 or 9 if peackeepers. If you play hive you can't do this though.
CrankyHotDog posted 08-29-99 10:24 PM ET
Natguy, this happened at a time early in the game, when I don't have supply crawlers. But I'll try the crawlers in a later game. Krushala, I was aiming to maximize reasearch and SPs, not building, and I was playing as the Hive.
Natguy posted 08-29-99 10:27 PM ET
I try to get crawlers as soon as possible. I frequently use them to hurry early projects.
RedFred posted 08-31-99 03:02 AM ET
CrankyHotDog:
Ah, the early game. My cities don't grow great guns either until I get gene splicing. Later game there are so many more options for growth that sometimes I have to hold my cities back until the infrastructure catches up.
If it is an early game problem, are you building recycling tanks/pressure domes? That will help a bit. Early city placement helps a bit too. I mostly terraform to forests, but occasionally need a farm or two on the wet country to get me going. Growing cities is so much easier on the west side of your land mass.
You can monkey with the SE table but in the early game you don't have a lot of options. If you play blind research like me, you can never be sure which will show up first: those supply crawlers (industrial automation) or the lifting of nutrient restrictions (gene splicing). Life (and growth) is so much easier after you get those two techs.
If I get a city that gets stuck before then, I just turn it into a colony pod city. I like to churn out the cities quickly at that point in the game anyway.
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Author	Topic: Help!
CrankyHotDog	posted 08-29-99 02:44 PM ET When I play my bases don't expand well enough. I build so many farms but they get stuck at size 3. HELP!
Natguy	posted 08-29-99 03:55 PM ET Supply Crawlers, my friend. Supply Crawlers. You can build a huge number of them without support costs, and they don't cause frone problems when out of the city. You can build farms in open corners of your empire (or set aside a part for a huge, crawler-worked plantation) and send your crawlers there to gather nutrients. I have used this and got a size two city up to a size nine in not too many turns. I then used crawlers to grow to, I believe it was 35 or so. I have not seen too many people use this strategy, but it sure works for me. That allows you to free workers to bring on Golden Ages, or built mineral and energy terraforming around the city while the crawlers take care of nutrients. Hope this helps. Good luck!
Krushala	posted 08-29-99 06:25 PM ET Make sure you have children's creches in every base. If you have plenty of farms go democratic and planned. With the creches you have +6 growth (same as cloning vats). Make sure you have rec commons in every base too. You may have to boost psych to max out you population to 7 or 9 if peackeepers. If you play hive you can't do this though.
CrankyHotDog	posted 08-29-99 10:24 PM ET Natguy, this happened at a time early in the game, when I don't have supply crawlers. But I'll try the crawlers in a later game. Krushala, I was aiming to maximize reasearch and SPs, not building, and I was playing as the Hive.
Natguy	posted 08-29-99 10:27 PM ET I try to get crawlers as soon as possible. I frequently use them to hurry early projects.
RedFred	posted 08-31-99 03:02 AM ET CrankyHotDog: Ah, the early game. My cities don't grow great guns either until I get gene splicing. Later game there are so many more options for growth that sometimes I have to hold my cities back until the infrastructure catches up. If it is an early game problem, are you building recycling tanks/pressure domes? That will help a bit. Early city placement helps a bit too. I mostly terraform to forests, but occasionally need a farm or two on the wet country to get me going. Growing cities is so much easier on the west side of your land mass. You can monkey with the SE table but in the early game you don't have a lot of options. If you play blind research like me, you can never be sure which will show up first: those supply crawlers (industrial automation) or the lifting of nutrient restrictions (gene splicing). Life (and growth) is so much easier after you get those two techs. If I get a city that gets stuck before then, I just turn it into a colony pod city. I like to churn out the cities quickly at that point in the game anyway.